Fact-checking the Arizona Senate debate between Ruben Gallego and Kari Lake

In the only debate scheduled for Arizona’s open U.S. Senate race, Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego tried to make Republican Kari Lake hold extreme views. Lake said Gallego had undergone an “extreme makeover” to make his liberal views more palatable to moderate and conservative voters.

Lake, a longtime news anchor in Phoenix, gained national attention in 2022 as a Republican gubernatorial candidate who aligned herself with former President Donald Trump’s debunked 2020 election claims; he lost the gubernatorial race. Gallego, a veteran of the US Marine Corps, is giving up the House seat he has held since 2015 to run for the Senate.

Lake focused on immigration, repeating several false claims from his and Trump’s campaign. Gallego attacked Lake on abortion, including his earlier support of a strict 1864 abortion ban that briefly became state law after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v.

Here’s a summary of several statements the two candidates made during the Oct. 9 debate, sponsored by the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission.

Lake’s false immigration claims

Lake: “The only piece of (immigration) legislation that Mr. Gallego has introduced was not about border security. It was about removing the word ‘illegal alien’ from anything on federal government paperwork.” .

false

Gallego was one of 13 Democratic co-sponsors of the Correcting Harmful and Alienating Names in Government Expression (CHANGE) Act in October 2015. However, as Lake said, he did not “propose” the legislation, which would be the job of lead sponsor of the bill. (The bill was not passed.)

This was not the only Galician law related to borders.

Gallego’s The Buck Stops Here Act, which passed the House in 2023, empowered the US Treasury to attack fentanyl money laundering linked to illicit trafficking.

Beyond that measure, Gallego was one of 37 House Democrats who supported the Republican-backed Laken Riley Act, which would have required the Department of Homeland Security to detain migrants who committed burglary or theft. The measure was approved in the House.

Gallego also introduced two other border-related bills: the Direct Hiring Act, which would increase staffing at US Citizenship and Immigration Services and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the screening efficiency, which would speed up asylum waiting times.

Gallego has also said he supports the bipartisan border bill backed by Biden that failed to pass in the Senate amid Trump’s opposition.

Lake: Gallego “actually voted twice for illegals to vote.”

false

Gallego joined most Democrats in voting against two Republican measures that included the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. But the bills would not have allowed the people of the country to vote illegally. Federal law already prohibits non-citizens from voting.

Gallego said the bill would create significant paperwork hurdles for U.S. citizens in Arizona who are eligible to vote.

Adding complexity to Gallego’s position is that he has at times taken a harder line on the noncitizen vote than many Democrats.

On May 23, 2024, Gallego voted in favor of a GOP bill that would bar non-citizens from voting in Washington, DC local elections. This vote came after Gallego voted against a similar bill on February 9, 2023.

Separately, Gallego introduced the Voting Clarity Act of 2024, which would require Customs and Border Protection agents to inform migrants that they cannot vote in federal elections if they are not US citizens.

Lake: “We’ve had 20 million people come across our border. They’re getting jobs, they’re getting housing. That’s why nobody can afford housing anymore, because we have to compete with people who have come illegally. .”

The 20 million figure is bogus, and the housing claim is mostly bogus.

During the Biden administration, immigration officials have encountered immigrants illegally crossing the U.S. border about 10 million times. When “runaways” are accounted for (border officials don’t stop), the number rises to about 11.6 million.

Encounters represent events, not entries, so a person who tries to cross the border twice counts as two encounters. Not everyone who is found is allowed into the country. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that about 4.2 million encounters have resulted in expulsions or expulsions.

About 3.9 million people have been released into the US to await immigration court hearings under the Biden administration, data from the Department of Homeland Security show.

Experts agree that increased immigration leads to increased demand for limited housing, but add that it is not the only, or even primarily, cause of rising housing prices. The shortage of available housing is primarily driving the increase in housing costs.

the abortion

Gallego: Kari Lake “was willing to look at a mother and say, ‘I know your daughter was raped, but she doesn’t have the right to an abortion.’ She was willing to say that just two years ago.”

Gallego’s comments leave the impression that Lake said those words to the mother of a rape victim. She didn’t.

When he ran for governor in 2022, Lake called an Arizona abortion ban dating back to 1864, which had no exceptions for incest or rape, a “great law.”

But in April, when the Arizona Supreme Court revived the ban after the courts put it on hold, Lake changed his mind, posting in X that the law “doesn’t fit where the people of this state are found.” (Arizona’s Democratic governor signed legislation permanently repealing the 1864 law the following month, after it passed the Republican-controlled legislature.)

Lake also told NBC News that he opposes the federal ban on abortion.

Lake: “I agree with Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She said this should be a decision left up to the states.”

false

Some legal experts, including the late liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, thought Roe should have been decided on different constitutional grounds than the justices used in 1973.

Ginsburg argued that Roe would have had better constitutional support if it had been based on the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, which would have grounded it in gender equality rather than the privacy rights implied in the 14th Amendment that protects abortion as a fundamental right. But that doesn’t mean he was in favor of leaving abortion law up to the states.

Jeffrey Rosen, author of the book “Conversations with RBG,” told The Washington Post in 2021 that Ginsburg was wary of a checkered state-by-state abortion law system, saying it would hurt poor women without the resources to travel.

“How can legislatures be trusted given the restrictions imposed by the states?” Ginsburg said. “Think about the Texas legislation that would put most clinics out of business.”

Childcare

Gallego: “Right now, childcare is more expensive than sending your kid” to Arizona State University.

It’s true.

The average annual cost per child of day care in Arizona was $16,675 in 2023, Self magazine estimated, based on data from sources such as the Census Bureau and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development . That was higher than the national figure of $11,582 the same year, according to Child Care Aware of America, a national network of child care resources and referral agencies.

Arizona’s child care figure exceeds the cost of Arizona State University’s in-state tuition, which for the 2024-25 academic year is $12,223.

Social Security

Lake: “Ruben Gallego, Kamala Harris and the Democrats are going to decimate (Social Security). They want to do it because the age you have to be to qualify for your Social Security, they want to raise it.”

false

Gallego has expressly opposed cutting Social Security. In Congress, he has presented several laws aimed at making Social Security costs transparent and increasing benefits. It also has the support of groups such as the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans and the National Committee To Preserve Social Security and Medicare, which advocate for the expansion of Social Security.

Harris also does not support raising the retirement age.

elections

Gallego: Lake is “currently suing to be reinstated as governor.”

She is correct, although she was never declared governor and therefore cannot be “reinstated”.

Lake has pursued a long-running lawsuit to overturn the results of the 2022 election, which he lost. Several court decisions dismissed his claims, which included the allegation that illegal votes were cast.

On June 11, 2024, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that the trial court was correct in dismissing Lake’s claims. On July 11, 2024, Lake filed an appeal with the state Supreme Court, so Gallego is correct in saying that the case continues.

PolitiFact copy chief Matthew Crowley, senior correspondent Amy Sherman and staff writer Maria Ramírez Uribe contributed to this report.